Organisation workflows – people or process?
IBM defines a workflow as:
“A system for managing repetitive processes and tasks which occur in a particular order. They are the mechanism by which people and enterprises accomplish their work, whether manufacturing a product, providing a service, processing information or any other value generating activity”.
I could question the use of “repetitive” as there is a time constraint in that statement. Is something repetitive only because it rapidly repeats itself, as in a production line, or if the work requires the same task to be performed at a particular point in an operational process?
Right there is where the question relating to whether a workflow is about people or process becomes moot. In fact, both elements combine to deliver within a workflow, and both can bring the same differentiated factors of automatic delivery or multi layered decision making.
In the world we live in, a mechanical process can be programmed to choose from multiple alternatives that respond to algorithmic input, and it would not be unreasonable to define that as decision making. These processes can be programmed to identify and choose in more complex arenas such as quality control, again dependent on pre-established parameters. So, to that extent an organisation workflow is a process.
And yet … those parameters have to be determined and while in the technologically driven mechanical environment parameters can be forensically measured by enforcing operating limits, right down to the most detailed decimal point, things become much more interesting when you start to factor in such esoteric factors as aesthetics. Can a process decide what is aesthetically acceptable? How do you determine what shade of a colour will optimise the sales of a particular brand of car?
Taking that further, who or what decides whether a particular shade of red highlights the beauty of a new model Ferrari, or whether the design of the new model Ferrari simply doesn’t work with a particular shade? Ferrari use upwards of 50 shades of red, (the current most common being Rosso Corsa), but they adapt the shade to purpose (the F1 cars are painted to enhance their speed on TV), but it is people who make the judgement call.
In short, a workflow is both process and people, each bringing specialist skills necessary to optimise performance and delivery.
Cursus addresses this within the context of the AI-enabled world we now inhabit starting where performance is most exposed – the workflows that carry your critical outcomes. It uses evidence to show how work really flows, and focuses that insight on the small number of workflows where performance matters most and value is greatest.
In doing so we ensure that the process is effective and the human element optimises all resources and, where appropriate, AI is used as necessary, not by dictat.
© Bill Mitchell
